Halloween and scary-themed slots are incredibly common, with the majority opting for a playful tone that doesn’t provoke any scares. Well, we are glad to see that not every developer decides to follow that blueprint, with Relax Gaming’s partner studio, Print Studios, providing a thoroughly terrifying experience with the Darkness slot. In this Darkness slot review, we will look at whether this has more to offer than just some cheap thrills and whether we think you should take it for a spin. 

In our experience, Halloween games always have a more playful tone. Modern examples like Big Bass Halloween repackage popular slots and put a pumpkin on them to take advantage of the marketing opportunities the holiday presents. 

While we enjoy these titles, it is always great to see a company fully embrace horror, which is what we have with Darkness. Admittedly, we first found the game a little too dark, with the reels illuminated by one or two lanterns. One solution we found was to turn the brightness settings up on your device. 

Once our eyes adjusted, though, we found a lot to like here. The rune-style symbols and the satanic ritual icons help create a really foreboding atmosphere, which is made better by a sinister soundtrack that plays in the background as you spin the reels. 

We tested the Darkness slot on a smartphone and tablet and found that it offered the same great experience on both. Once again, the darkness itself was a little bit of an issue, so just make sure your screen brightness is up to full. The Darkness mobile slot runs smoothly on Android and iOS and is supported across mobile browsers. 

For a game that provides a very different feel when it is first loaded, we were surprised to find the base game of the Darkness slot keeps things very simple. The slot uses five reels containing four rows with 26 paylines. To land wins, players need to hit combinations of three or more matching symbols across a line. 

The stake is adjusted below the reels, with a minimum wager of $0.10 and a maximum of $50, which we found to be a generous range. There is also an autospin option, which is great if you want to kick back and let the slot do the heavy lifting. 

One of the first things we noticed when we spun the reels of the Darkness slot was the numbers that were displayed on the lanterns between the reels. These are the Super Spinners, and if a win passes through one of them, the win is multiplied by that amount. These were responsible for some of our biggest wins during our test run of the game. 

Next, we encountered the Giant Symbols. These are 3x2 to 5x4 in size, and they count as multiple instances of their symbols based on the number of positions they are covering. For example, a 3x2 symbol counts as six. 

The main feature is the Dark Ritual bonus, which is triggered when players land three or more scatters. Three, four, or five scatters trigger 10, 12, or 14 spins, respectively. The shape of a Pentagram marks the grid before the spins. If a wild lands on any of the five points of this, it locks into position and rewards two more spins. If you cover all five corners, Lucifer appears and turns the middle three reels wild.

Depending on your location, you can also use the Scatter Boost option, which will trigger the chance of landing scatters by 50%. There is also a Buy Bonus feature, allowing you to gain access to the Dark Ritual Bonus for 100x your stake. 

We found the math model of the Darkness slot to be very positive. The slot has a maximum win of 20,000x your stake, which is definitely something we are not going to complain about. The game's volatility is considered high, and the RTP is 96.14%, which is above the industry average. 

When reviewing slots, it is nice to come across something that breaks the mold a little bit, and that is exactly the experience we had with Darkness. While the game’s design is almost a little too dark, we found the gameplay to be thoroughly engaging and the bonus features to be excellent. The maximum win of 20,000x our stake only sweetened what was already a wickedly sweet deal. Overall, Darkness is a top casino slot we are very happy to recommend.